Business Directories

Bahrain upholds spying case sentences

Manama, July 3, 2014

Bahrain's highest court has upheld the 10-year-jail term of a defendant convicted of spying for a foreign country.

The High Criminal Court had earlier sentenced the convict to 10 years in prison and handed him a BD10,000 ($26,396) fine, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

However, he lodged an appeal in the Cassation Court which upheld the verdict yesterday.

Two other accomplices, who are still at large, have also been convicted in absentia and handed the same sentence, Attorney General Wael Bualley said.

The trio were convicted of spying for a foreign country between 2002 and April 2010 - with an aim to damage Bahrain's economic, military and political interests.

Charges

The Public Prosecution charged them with supplying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with information and data on Bahrain's sensitive sites in exchange for money.

The other two defendants, who lived in Kuwait, were hired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to gather secret information on military installations and sensitive locations in Kuwait, as well as vital economic and military sites in Bahrain.

They, in turn, hired the first defendant, who was with his relative in Kuwait, and assigned him to gather sensitive information on vital locations in Bahrain.

The first defendant admitted to spying on Bahrain with the aim of damaging its political, economic and military interests.

The Public Prosecution had sought the assistance of Kuwaiti judicial authorities in conducting the probe as the two cases were interlinked. - TradeArabia News Service